17:I[87192,["$2","$7","$8"],"HomeScene"] 18:T1256,

When I joined the Universal Life Church in 2014, much of its web presence was spread across WordPress sites. Building and maintaining those satellite sites, which helped drive traffic to Ulc.org, The Monastery, and Get Ordained, was my introduction to professional PHP development. As part of a six-person development team, I later helped build the shared Laravel application that now serves 10 ULC domains. Each site has its own identity, content, routes, and assets, backed by shared code and systems.

Over the past 12 years, I’ve worked across the public sites and the tools that keep them running. That includes online ordination, minister accounts, wedding resources, blogs, search, live chat, ecommerce storefronts, and admin tools for customer support. I work with PHP, Laravel, MySQL, JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, and SCSS, building responsive interfaces as well as the services and database features behind them.

Commerce connects many parts of the platform. Products, SKUs, and options vary by site; customers can personalize credentials and certificates; and orders move through checkout, payment, sales tax, PDF generation, printing, packing, and shipping. I’ve worked on storefront and order workflows that use Authorize.net and TaxJar, alongside fulfillment tools that extend into the physical world through an AxiDraw integration used to sign certificates.

I also work with Freshdesk, Mailchimp, AWS S3, Meilisearch and Laravel Scout, Google services, and the OpenAI API. The sites use separate frontend builds with Laravel Mix and Webpack. I use PHPUnit and Laravel Dusk to test changes, and contribute to documentation and code standards. My recent work includes checkout safeguards, newsletter improvements, blog moderation, sitemap updates, and privacy-request flows.

My role extends into the content and communication that bring people to the sites. I built a tool for assembling The Visionary newsletter and continue to help produce it. I prepare weekly SEO reports, lead regular team webinars, and use Figma and Adobe tools to support web and marketing work. That range of responsibilities keeps me close to the entire experience, from how someone discovers ULC online to how their order is fulfilled.

Laravel websites:

https://www.ulc.org
https://getordained.org
https://themonastery.org
https://www ulccaselaw.com

https://www.ulccaselaw.org/

https://www ulclegaldefense.org

https://www beaminister.org

https://www.universalday.org
https://universallifechurchministries.org/

https://www.universallifechurchministers.org/

Other sites (Wordpress, Socialengine, Asp.net):

https://www.ulcministers.org
https://theuniversallifechurch.org

https://www.universalchurch.org/

https://universallifechurch.ca/

https://www.universallifechurch.org/

19:Tfe9,

Founder, Full-Stack Web Developer, and Artist

Live site: https://www.samahamusic.com

Samaha Music is a custom, full-stack Laravel application built to function as both a public-facing artist website and a purpose-built content-management system. Rather than using WordPress, Squarespace, or an off-the-shelf CMS, I developed a tailored admin platform that gives the site owner direct control over content, media, page presentation, SEO, and event promotion while keeping the public experience fast, cohesive, and fully branded.

The application is built with Laravel 10 and PHP, backed by a MySQL database and rendered with Blade templates. The frontend includes a homepage, blog, portfolio, tour page, shop, services, merchandise, and contact experience. Each public page is backed by structured database content and configurable CMS settings rather than hard-coded page content.

The admin area is secured through Laravel authentication and provides dedicated management tools for blog posts, categories, tags, portfolio projects, portfolio categories, tour events, page-level settings, SEO metadata, site settings, user profile settings, and uploaded media. This allows new content and visual updates to be made without code changes or a deployment.

The CMS uses a flexible content architecture centered around a shared posts table. Blog posts and portfolio entries are separated by a post_type field, while extensible post metadata—such as SEO descriptions, keywords, and portfolio image galleries—is stored in a separate metadata table. Categories, tags, and portfolio categories are managed through a custom taxonomy system and linked to content through a relationship table. This provides CMS-style flexibility without requiring a third-party content-management package.

Tour dates are handled through a dedicated tour_events table and Eloquent model. The system allows events to be published, edited, reordered by date, and presented automatically as upcoming or past events, including venue information and ticket URLs. Page-level configuration is also database-driven, allowing the admin to update backgrounds, colors, navigation styles, promotional artwork, and page-specific SEO fields.

I implemented protected media-upload workflows for featured images, portfolio galleries, and editor content; a validated and rate-limited contact form with email delivery; SEO fallbacks and per-page metadata; social-sharing options; responsive layouts; and a modern asset pipeline using Node.js, Laravel Mix, Webpack, Sass, Bootstrap, and JavaScript/jQuery.

This project demonstrates full-stack product ownership: database design, backend architecture, authenticated CMS workflows, frontend implementation, content modeling, media handling, SEO, responsive UI development, and long-term maintenance.

Custom CMS Highlights

Secure Laravel-authenticated admin dashboard
Custom CRUD workflows for posts, portfolio projects, categories, tags, and tour events
Shared, extensible content model for blog and portfolio content
Key/value metadata system for flexible SEO fields and image galleries
Custom taxonomy and content-relationship system
Database-driven page styling, backgrounds, colors, and SEO configuration
Featured-image and gallery-media upload workflows
Tour-date management with automatic upcoming/past event separation
Contact-form validation, rate limiting, and email delivery
Blade-rendered public frontend with responsive Bootstrap/Sass styling
Node.js, Laravel Mix, and Webpack frontend asset pipeline

1a:T599,

Backstory:

Most portfolios begin with a grid. I wanted this one to begin with personality. Projects drift through the scene as thought clouds around a hand-drawn character, creating a browsable experience that feels more like exploring a memory than scanning a directory.

Under the surface, it is a Next.js and React application built around a custom interactive scene. CSS Modules handle the organic cloud shapes, responsive layouts, and motion, while React state and browser APIs drive pointer-tracking eyes, continuously animated cloud movement, keyboard-accessible project modals, reduced-motion support, and a separate touch-friendly mobile card rail.

I built a private project studio with Supabase Auth, Postgres, and Storage so the portfolio can be maintained without editing source files. Projects support private drafts and published revisions, feature media, an ordered image/video gallery, rich-text content blocks, configurable media layouts, technology tags, and a live public-facing preview. Media and content are stored independently from the presentation layer, so the same project data can power both the editor and the public modal.

The result is a portfolio designed as a small content platform: expressive and memorable on the outside, with a structured, typed, responsive, and maintainable system underneath.

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On the right: the preview, updating in real time... what I make here, the user sees when clicking a cloud. "},{"type":"image","src":"https://witnksybhncsidbxzaql.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/project-media/cccdf6d8-3065-4c3d-a38b-b29c1a1ba28e/gallery/1790277691638-admin-slider.png","alt":"Slider and media","caption":"I can upload images and videos into a slider, or create custom blocks with both media and text. "},{"type":"image","src":"https://witnksybhncsidbxzaql.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/project-media/cccdf6d8-3065-4c3d-a38b-b29c1a1ba28e/gallery/1790281901135-anthonysamaha-responsive.png","alt":"responsive","caption":"When the window shrinks / is viewed on mobile, clouds become like a deck of cards; user can swipe the clouds to cycle through them. "}],"contentBlocks":"$undefined","projectSections":[{"id":"a0137e6e-476e-4ba6-970d-0fdb85a08d7e","title":"","showInNavigation":false,"blocks":[{"id":"8a856a5d-edc9-4a83-ae01-ac135319664d","type":"text","heading":null,"body":"$1a","src":null,"alt":"","caption":null,"settings":{}},{"id":"c6e7d80a-6e9c-4b4b-9f31-cd20f5cdfbcc","type":"textImage","heading":null,"body":"

Adding Motion:

I wanted to add some fun animation to this portfolio. All my ideas and creations were once ideas in my head, so I turned those ideas into clouds. I have plenty of clouds: rain, snow, thunder & lightning, and even a rainbow variation.

","src":"https://witnksybhncsidbxzaql.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/project-media/cccdf6d8-3065-4c3d-a38b-b29c1a1ba28e/blocks/1791491178341-cloud-combined.gif","alt":"","caption":null,"settings":{"gap":"large","imageWidth":"large","imagePosition":"left"}},{"id":"3a114b44-f411-4274-b25f-eb05042f7867","type":"textImage","heading":null,"body":"

Other fun animations: Clicking the brain will cause my face to flash in pain, and the clouds to display OUCH! Cheeky. There's also my dog Wagner who appears around the edges of the site, try and pet him and he will run away in a hurry! There's also a fun sun who pops in to see whatsup. Eyeballs also follow the mouse movement. We like to have fun here at the Anthony Samaha Portfolio page.

","src":"https://witnksybhncsidbxzaql.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/project-media/cccdf6d8-3065-4c3d-a38b-b29c1a1ba28e/blocks/1791491257489-characters-combined.gif","alt":"","caption":null,"settings":{"imageWidth":"medium","imagePosition":"right"}}]}]}]}]